This year’s award season to celebrate the high quality 2010 movies is over. The Academy has spoken and The King’s Speech is the big winner.

The ceremony opened up with a very funny bit of montage with this year’s hosts, James Franco and Anne Hathaway, doing acting bits in the Best Picture nominated movies. We were able to watch them be part of Inception, The Social Network, True Grit, The King’s Speech, etc… and it was quite awesome. Anne Hathaway had some awesome lines, notably when, during her “role” in The King’s Speech she says: “we come from the future with good news… we have smaller microphones” or when she freaks out Natalie Portman in Black Swan as the green duck.

And then they started their opening segment which was very dull apart from a couple Hathaway lines about how it’s been a great year for lesbians and how getting naked isn’t enough anymore to warrant a best actress nomination, taking a stab at herself for her mostly nude movie Love and Other Drugs.

Soon after that, Tom Hanks came on to present the first two awards of the night, Art Direction (Alice in Wonderland won) and Cinematography (Inception).

Then, Kirk Douglas came up to present Supporting Actress and I honestly thought it was torture. He kept pushing on the nominees’ buttons and it was pretty interesting to see them getting prepared for the results only to see him divert the subject elsewhere. Melissa Leo won this, as expected, although many had predicted an upset (myself included). Melissa Leo then a very horrible acceptance speech where she dropped the F-word, only to become the night’s go-to joke about acceptance speeches. Literally, everyone who won something referenced her in his acceptance speech.

However, soon enough, it began to look like The King’s Speech was not going to own the night as many had predicted. The race was as close as it can be. Soon enough, even Alice in Wonderland had two Oscars.

Supporting Actor went to Christian Bale, as was pretty much expected. So if anyone believes the combination of a Screen Actors Guild Award and Golden Globe doesn’t make you a lock for an Oscar win, this night proved you wrong. The “weakest” frontrunners in the acting categories came out unscathed and victorious.

In the meantime, Anne Hathaway continued a pretty overzealous and energetic hosting job by dressing up as man and taking a stab as Hugh Jackman (Or Huge Jackass as she named him) by singing and dancing about it. And just when you thought she dwarfed Franco beyond measure, he comes up on stage in pink drag. That was probably his most memorable moment. He just looked like he didn’t want to be there.

Continuing with the awards, Inception received both Sound-related awards, to raise its total to three, leading the night. The Social Network scored two quick wins for Best Original Score and Best Adapted Screenplay, as expected.

Then there was a bunch of awards for short films most of us hadn’t watched. Oprah then presented the award for Best Documentary. Inside Job won. I thought Oprah looked dead tired.

Documentary was soon followed by the nerve-wracking Film Editing. It has become known that the movie that wins Film Editing is the favorite to win Best Picture. And in a night where the combination of the awards handed out so far didn’t single out a clear frontrunner, this award looked like it might seal the deal. The Social Network won this and adding to its Adapted Screenplay and Original Score, it looked like we might have a Social Network sweep – again.

Russell Brand and Helen Mirren presented Best Foreign Language Film and Helen Mirren came across yet again as a superb class act by addressing the audience in fluent French. All hail to the queen!

For you animation lovers, this year’s animation phenomenon Toy Story 3 went home with the gold, winning two Oscars, one for Best Animated Feature and the second one for Best Original Song.

Speaking of Best Original Song, there were four performances, the highlight of which was A.R. Rahman and Florence Welch from Florence and the Machine singing “If I Rise”. It was a chills-inducing performance and the song deserved to win. Gwyneth Paltrow sang nominated song “Coming Home” from her latest movie “Country Strong” and I thought she did well. Randy Newman, the writer of Toy Story’s theme song “We Belong Together” mentioned how weird it was not to have a fifth song nominated. And I agree with this. “There’s A Place For Us” by Carrie Underwood for the movie Chronicles of Narnia deserved a nomination.

Later on, Inception reclaimed its title for top movie of the night by earning its fourth Oscar for Visual Effects, a much deserved win – although my heart also wanted Harry Potter to snag its first Academy Award. Which reminds me, The Wolfman won for best makeup. And I thought it was an abomination how this movie gets to flaunt an Academy Award and the whole Harry Potter series has none. Having said that, Deathly Hallows Part 2 better bring it at next year’s Oscars!

Speaking of Harry Potter, there was a funny segment as well about how “musicals” have been an important part of the business this part year. The segment comprised of dialogue parts from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1, The Social Network and Twilight, among other movies, transformed into song. I thought it was pretty cool, actually.

And since it’s not the Oscars without a proper “In Memoriam” segment, Celine Dion sang a beautiful rendition of “Smile” to a montage of the pictures of industry people that have left us, commemorating their memory.

Continuing with James Franco still looking like he’d rather be anywhere but the Oscars, we get to the final and most important stretch of the night. The last four awards: Director, actor, actress and picture.

Director comes up. Drumroll, please… and what do you know, it’s our first major upset of the night. Presented by last year’s undeserving winner Kathryn Bigelow (yes, I think The Hurt Locker is such an overrated movie!) Tom Hooper for The King’s Speech overtakes David Fincher for The Social Network, who looked like a frontrunner for this category. Tom Hooper delivered a remarkable speech, telling the story of how if it weren’t for his mother, The King’s Speech wouldn’t have been made. I have to say, British people make the best acceptance speeches. This win, however, brings us back to square zero in our movie frontrunner race. Best Picture is back up for grabs.

The Best Actress category was announced by last year’s Best Actor winner, Jeff Bridges. And honestly, I much preferred last year’s nominees introduction. It just seemed so bland and rushed this year around, like they simply wanted to get it over with. These are five women who gave it their all to be where they were, at least give them the decency of properly introducing them. I still get goosebumps when remembering how Stanley Tucci introduced the great Meryl Streep and how Oprah introduced newcomer Gabourey Sidibe last year… No surprise here, however, Natalie Portman won this. She acted surprised and I thought it wasn’t that credible. Sure, you’re happy and all but come on, you’ve seen this one coming since December. It’s not like Jennifer Lawrence or Michelle Williams or even Annette Bening had a late moment surge in votes. She looked very pregnant and gave a pretty boring speech. I was thankful she did not mention her “sexual activities” with her fiance but she enumerated too many names than I care to remember. Last year’s speech by sweetheart Sandra Bullock beats this by a country mile!

Contrast it with this:

Then it was time for yet another expected category with Best Actor. We all knew Colin Firth was going to win this, but what made the category extra-special was Sandra Bullock’s introduction of the nominees. She walked the line between seriousness and humor so meticulously. She radiated with confidence. I think she should host next year’s Oscars. She is just all kinds of awesome! So yeah, Colin Firth won. He opened up his speech about how he might have hit “the apex of [his] career” and then his speech became another snooze-fest. You’d think after all the rehearsals in the movie he won for and the fact that he is British and it’s in their genes to deliver awesome acceptance speeches, he’d do a better job.

And then it was time for the moment of truth. Which movie would turn out a winner out of the two that are seriously left battling it out?

The King’s Speech came out triumphant, bringing its total to four Oscars, tying it with Inception for first place. The whole cast and producers came on stage, a speech I did not care about ensued.

Following The King’s Speech “expected” win, the P.S. 22 Chorus closed the night with their rendition of “Somewhere Over The Rainbow”, the winners joined them on stage. And we’re out people!

All in all, I felt last year’s Oscars had more prestige. I thought they didn’t give the movies nominated for Best Picture their due. Each movie had a segment introducing it last year. This time around, the movies were parodied and barely mentioned when their category came up. Maybe the Academy personnel should care about delivering a better ceremony show suitable for the Oscars than a show to attract young viewers?

13 thoughts on “The Oscars Debrief”

Well, I do hate it when i agree with you in almost everything so i dont have lots of opposing comments 😀
Its a good Read, you are completely right about the hosts, but i also found their intro-montage also very extremely super dull..
Now i really wanted the Social Network to win “Best Director”, “Best Picture”, and “Best Actor”.. but i havent seen “King’s Speech”, so may be i will change my mind when i see it..
and Thank you for posting Portman’s video ! i just saw it and i didn’t see her “too fakely surprised”, i think she looked normally happy.. now i cant say anything negative about her so coz i simply adore her.. but you may have a point i will never get 😛
Thank you for this post! am Definitely sharing it! 🙂

Haha, I know you found the montages dull. But no, they were fun. Maybe it’s because it was late and you were tired?
Too bad the Oscars ban videos from going on Youtube properly. It was hell to find the vids that I found.
Also, regarding Portman, my point was that she could have done so much better. She was a lock to win so she could’ve been, I dunno, happier about it? :p or perhaps she could have had a better speech in mind… She’s a brilliant actress and she excels as Nina but with accepting the award for her excellence, she fails :p

You should watch The King’s Speech. I actually like The Social Network a bit more but The King’s Speech is a very engaging movie. This year had too much great movies. I’d say TSN is my #3 and TKS is my #4 but that could change since I’ve only seen TKS once and TSN 3 times.
And thanks for liking it 🙂

I actually thought Kirk Douglas was torture at first but then he brought it and thought his segment was a true highlight. How old is the man?
Regarding Anne Hathaway, I thought she balanced Franco, tbh. He was a total bore and she was overexcited. I actually blame the show’s writers for the hosts’ misfire. It was their job to write them up jokes that would actually be funny. I thought Hathaway actually tried to make the best out of what was available for her, whilst Franco did not.

Oh and The King’s Speech definitely deserved a win, as did almost all the other nominated movies. It was such a good year, tbh. And finally, someone who likes Winter’s Bone. I thought that movie was beyond great! Jennifer Lawrence was just brilliant in it and it’s so under-appreciated both as a movie and a performance!

True! Winter’s Bone was really really good and both actors (Jennifer Lawrence and John Hawkes) deserved the nomination.
Kirk Douglas turned 94 , but he is a legend, so in a way, I was pleasantly surpirsed to see him. Eli Wallach made an appearance aswell. He’s 95.
Btw, I enjoyed reading some of ur reviews! Finally someone who appreciates movies as much as I do :p keep it up!

I actually thought Jennifer Lawrence even deserved to win. She was my favorite performance out of the nominees.
And thanks 🙂 Yeah, I have a thing for movies :p
I also enjoyed reading your reviews! I wouldn’t put The Kids Are Alright on my top 10 list though. Not even close :p

I made the list before I watched the kings speech, black swan, true grit, 127 hours or winter’s bone. But I really liked The kids are allright. Jennifer Lawrence is a natural and I cant wait to see her next project. R u into old movies aswell?

m a huge fan of old horror flicks aswell (from the 30’s and 40’s): wolfman, dracula, invisible man, frankenstein, the mummy…and 50’s sci-fi flicks such as “The day the earth stood still”, It came from outer space, and “War of the worlds”.

I can talk for hours :p but u get the picture. Start with hitchcock if u havent watched any of his movies yet. Rope, vertigo and Rear window are one of his best!

I’ve heard of most of those people, definitely. I was always intrigued by Hitchcock, so I will most definitely check those movies out. Also, many of the movies you mentioned are on my must-see list, ex: Citizen Kane, Godfather, etc…
I will let you know when I start watching! 😀
Btw, have you watched 127 Hours? It’s my 2nd favorite movie of the year.

I thought Franco was better than Firth actually. He was my pick for best actor – although that was as likely to happen as winning the lottery :p
My main pick for best picture was Inception. I thought that movie was beyond brilliant.